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Broadcasters go after Aereo by suing smaller competitor, Aereokiller | The Verge: "The nation's largest television broadcasters filed a copyright lawsuit against FilmOn.TV and its Aereokiller service yesterday, alleging that the service retransmits TV programming without authorization or compensating them, according to a story in Variety. Aereokiller is the flippantly-named competitor to Aereo, the company that uses dime-sized antennas to capture over-the-air TV transmissions and then streams them to subscribers by way of the internet."

Is the Next Xbox the One? : The New Yorker: "It was hard not to be wowed when Yusuf Mehdi, a senior vice-president at I.E.B., walked on stage, turned the machine on with his voice, and began flipping, with little effort, instantly from live television to Skype to a room-quaking video game and back. And it was impossible not to imagine never seeing a terrible interface from Comcast again, never hunting for a remote control, then pressing my face into my TV to see the hairs on a soldier’s arm in the new Call of Duty. To imagine unplugging every other box from my television. Except One. But then I realized that, if the next seven years deliver the same kind of profound changes as the past seven, I can’t possibly imagine what I’ll want connected to my television by then. And I wondered if anyone really could."

Google Retail Blog: Connecting people and the products they love: " . . . a new channel gadget on YouTube that will enable consumer goods brands to connect consumers directly with retailers throughout the entire YouTube experience. This new channel gadget will enable shoppers to seamlessly move from browsing how-to videos and featured products to finding which retailers carry them, check availability, compare prices and make a purchase, all with fewer clicks than today.
Unilever has partnered with Google to highlight TRESemmé as the first brand to use this new YouTube channel gadget to showcase their line of hair care solutions. . . . " (read more at link above)

General Overview - WebRTC: "WebRTC offers web application developers the ability to write rich, realtime multimedia applications (think video chat) on the web, without requiring plugins, downloads or installs. It's purpose is to help build a strong RTC platform that works across multiple web browsers, across multiple platforms."

WebRTC is growing fast: soon to surpass one billion devices — Tech News and Analysis: "WebRTC, the new technology that enables plugin-free voice and video chat within the browser, should be available on more than one billion unique endpoints (think: desktop browsers and mobile devices) “within a week,” according to Google’s WebRTC engineering lead Justin Uberti, who gave an update on WebRTC’s progress at Google I/O Friday."

Nintendo claims ownership over gamer fanvids on YouTube - Boing Boing: "Alan Wexelblat comment on the news that Nintendo has claimed "monetization rights" to fan videos on YouTube that feature tips on playing its games. Some of these videos are incredibly popular, and while their use of Nintendo's creations are often fair use, Nintendo gets to use YouTube's monetization system to advertise on all the videos . . ."

The first video ever uploaded to YouTube: "On February 14, 2005, Chad Hurly, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim purchased a domain name that would forever change the way media is disseminated and consumed. You see, a little over 8 years ago is when the aforementioned individuals got together and purchased the YouTube.com domain.
YouTube was famously founded by the trifecta of Hurly, Chen, and Karim, three early employees of PayPal. On May 19, 2005, the first the first preview of the site was made available to the public. . . . uploaded to YouTube on April 23, 2005. The video depicts YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim at the San Diego Zoo chillin' with some elephants.
As of May, 2013, the video has accumulated over 11 million views and approximately 86,300 comments.
In a blogpost commemorating the occassion, YouTube doled out some fascinating statistics about its extremely popular website.
Today, more than 100 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute . . . ."

Apple aims to win over video editors
Los Angeles Times
Video editors jeered that Apple had abandoned loyal professional users to create a cheap product aimed at consumers. References to "Apple's lemon" and "debacle" became common refrains in blog posts and industry trades scrutinizing the fallout. read more at link above

Yahoo Scraps Deal for French Video Site - WSJ.com: ""I won't let you sell one of France's best startups," Mr. Montebourg told Mr. Pelissier, his voice raised, according to people briefed on the meeting. "You don't know what you're doing." Efforts since then to salvage the sale have failed. Yahoo decided not to pursue a deal after Mr. Montebourg insisted that it not take majority control, the people added. But France Télécom—27% owned by the French state—remains open to a deal if Yahoo wants to come back to the table, one of the people added. A spokeswoman for Yahoo and a spokesman for Dailymotion declined to comment. The French newspaper Le Monde earlier reported the collapse of the talks . . . The collapse of talks to sell Dailymotion risks damaging France's image with foreign businesses and investors at a time when France is depending on them for growth." read more at link above

FTC Dot Com Disclosure Update: What's New for 2013 | Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP - JDSupra: " . . .
The revised guidelines, “.com Disclosures: How to Make Effective Disclosures in Digital Advertising (pdf),” seek to help businesses apply many of the same principles espoused in the previous version of the guidelines to modern technologies and marketing channels. WHAT’S THE SAME: The guidelines emphasize that traditional consumer protection laws—most importantly, the FTC Act §5’s prohibition on “unfair and deceptive practices”—apply with equal weight to advertising online and in new media. The guides also make clear that “advertising” encompasses all forms of promotional content, from online advertising, marketing, and sales, to promotional activities, testimonials, social media, blog posts and other forms in use now or in the future. As ever, if a disclosure is required to prevent an advertisement from being deceptive or unfair, the disclosure must be “clear and conspicuous”. . ." read more at link above

YouTube Touts Viewer Growth to Advertisers - WSJ.com: " . . . YouTube on Wednesday made its latest pitch to advertisers, saying they should "follow the audience." More than one billion unique visitors watch more than six billion hours of YouTube videos a month, up from about four billion hours a month last year, said Robert Kyncl, a top YouTube executive, speaking in New York at an ad-sales event that is the equivalent to the "upfront" in the television industry. . . ." read more at link above

YouTube Blog: Follow the audience...: "DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg announced that his company acquired AwesomenessTV, one of the most subscribed-to, teen-focused networks on YouTube. This acquisition gives DreamWorks an opportunity to align itself with Brian Robbins’ powerful, next-generation, online video powerhouse. By partnering with more than 55,000 YouTube channels that collectively represent more than 14 million subscribers and almost 800 million video views, Brian successfully created a YouTube network comprised of one of the most valuable consumer groups--Generation C. This audience is defined by its desire to be constantly connected, and at the center of creating and curating content for social communities." read more at link above

Eric Schmidt: television is 'already over' - Telegraph: "Speaking at a gathering of digital advertisers in New York City last night, Mr Schmidt refused to forecast when internet video would displace television, instead declaring: "That's already happened." "It's not a replacement for something that we know," he added. "It's a new thing that we have to think about, to program, to curate and build new platforms.". . . "I thought that YouTube was like TV, but it isn't. I was wrong," said Robert Kyncl, YouTube's global head of content. "TV is one-way. YouTube talks back.". . . Yesterday's announcement is a distinct change of tone, with a focus away from content production to the YouTube platform itself. More 18 to 34-year-olds watch YouTube than any cable network in the United States, and the site's popular system of user comments and thumbs up/thumbs down voting on videos has become an industry standard for video sites and newer ventures such as social news site Reddit." read more at link above

Wikipedia is now drawing facts from the Wikidata repository, and so can you — Tech News and Analysis:
It’s worth noting that the initial funding for Wikidata’s development has come from Google, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence. Ultimately, Wikidata is precisely the sort of venture that is needed to feed the nascent semantic web and AI movement.
It’s far from the only venture in this space – I’d also recommend keeping a close eye on Google’s Knowledge Graph, which powers Google Now, and Wolfram|Alpha, which partly powers Siri – but all these (often intertwined) projects are essentially trying to do the same thing: to turn facts into something that machines can understand.

Amazon Said to Plan TV Set-Top Box for Streaming Video - Bloomberg: "The device, due later this year, will connect to televisions, said the people, who asked not to be identified because they’re not authorized to speak publicly about it. It will also provide access to Amazon’s expanding video services, which include the Amazon Video on Demand store. Amazon would move into closer competition with Apple Inc. (AAPL), which sells its own set-top box called Apple TV. The device would also compete with products from Roku Inc. and Boxee Inc., as well as gaming consoles from Microsoft Corp. and Sony Corp. that deliver video programming. Amazon Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos is pushing the company into a broadening array of hardware, including tablets, electronic readers and a planned smartphone."

Popular streaming channels:Netflix: The king of movie and TV show streaming. $7.99/mo.
YouTube: User-submitted videos and some original programming. Free.
Hulu Plus: TV shows days after they air and some movies. $7.99/mo.
Amazon Prime: A strong Netflix competitor with other Amazon benefits. $79/year.
Crackle: Movies and TV mostly from Sony's library. Free.
Vudu: Movie rental site owned by Walmart. Fees per movie